Severn Tunnel
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The Severn Tunnel ( cy, Twnnel Hafren) is a railway tunnel in the United Kingdom, linking
South Gloucestershire South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, South West England. Towns in the area include Yate, Chipping Sodbury, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke, the latter three forming part ...
in the west of England to
Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( cy, Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, with ...
in south Wales under the
estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...
of the
River Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...
. It was constructed by the
Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
(GWR) between 1873 and 1886 for the purpose of dramatically shortening the journey times of their trains, passenger and freight alike, between South Wales and Western England. It has often been regarded as the crowning achievement of GWR's chief engineer
Sir John Hawkshaw Sir John Hawkshaw FRS FRSE FRSA MICE (9 April 1811 – 2 June 1891), was an English civil engineer. He served as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers 1862-63. His most noteworthy work is the Severn Tunnel. Early life He was bor ...
. Prior to the tunnel's construction, lengthy detours were necessary for all traffic between South Wales and Western England, which either used ship or a lengthy diversion upriver via . Recognising the value of such a tunnel, the GWR sought its development, tasking Hawkshaw with its design and later contracting the civil engineer Thomas A. Walker to undertake its construction, which commenced in March 1873. Work proceeded smoothly until October 1879, at which point significant flooding of the tunnel occurred from what is now known as “The Great Spring”. Through strenuous and innovative efforts, the flooding was contained and work was able to continue, albeit with a great emphasis on drainage. Structurally completed during 1885, the first passenger train was run through the tunnel on 1 December 1886, nearly 14 years after the commencement of work. Following its opening, the tunnel quickly formed a key element of the main trunk railway line between southern England and South Wales. Amongst other services, the GWR operated a
car shuttle train A car shuttle train, or (sometimes) car-carrying train, is a shuttle train used to transport accompanied cars ( automobiles), and usually also other types of road vehicles, for a relatively short distance. Car shuttle trains usually operate on ...
service through the tunnel for many decades. However, the tunnel has also presented especially difficult conditions, both operationally and in terms of infrastructure and structural maintenance. On average, around 50 million litres of water per day infiltrates the tunnel, necessitating the permanent operation of several large pumping engines. Originally, during much of the steam era, a large number of pilot and banking locomotives were required to assist heavy trains traverse the challenging gradients of the tunnel, which deployed from nearby
marshalling yards A classification yard (American and Canadian English (Canadian National Railway use)), marshalling yard ( British, Hong Kong, Indian, Australian, and Canadian English (Canadian Pacific Railway use)) or shunting yard (Central Europe) is a railway ...
. The tunnel is long, although only of its length are under the river. It was the longest underwater tunnel in the world until 1987 and, for more than 100 years, it was the longest mainline railway tunnel within the UK. It was finally exceeded in this capacity during 2007 with the opening of the two major tunnels of
High Speed 1 High Speed 1 (HS1), legally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel. It is part of a line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe; ...
, forming a part of the
Channel Tunnel Rail Link High Speed 1 (HS1), legally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel. It is part of a line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe; ...
. In 2016,
Overhead line equipment An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. It is known variously as: * Overhead catenary * Overhead contact system (OCS) * Overhead equipmen ...
(OHLE) was installed in the tunnel to allow the passage of electric traction; this work was undertaken as one element of the wider
21st-century modernisation of the Great Western main line Network Rail planned to spend £5 billion on modernising the Great Western Main Line, its South Wales branch and other associated lines. The modernisation plans were announced at separate times but their development time-scales overlap in the 20 ...
.


General

The Severn Tunnel forms a critical part of the trunk railway line between southern England and South Wales, and carries an intensive passenger train service as well as significant levels of freight traffic. As of 2012, an average of 200 trains per day use the tunnel. The whole length of the tunnel is controlled as a single signal section, which has the consequence of limiting the headway of successive trains. The steep gradients (1 in 90 and 1 in 100) make the working of heavy freight trains difficult. There is a continuous drainage culvert between the tracks to lead ground water away to the lowest point of the tunnel, under Sudbrook Pumping Station, where it is pumped to the surface. The hazard of ignited petroleum running into the culvert in the event of derailment of a tank wagon means special arrangements have to be made to prevent occupation of the tunnel by passenger trains while hazardous liquid loads are being worked through. Evacuation arrangements are in place to enable the escape of passengers and staff in the event of serious accident in the tunnel. There is restricted personnel access to the tunnel at Sudbrook Pumping Station, where an iron ladder descends in the shaft of the water pumping main; the ventilation air is pumped in at this point also. The GWR original ventilation arrangement was to extract air at Sudbrook, but the exhaust gases from steam train operation led to premature corrosion of the fan mechanism. When the Cornish pumping engines were replaced in the 1960s, the draughting was reversed so that atmospheric air is pumped into the tunnel exhausting at the tunnel mouths. On average, it has been determined that around per day of fresh (spring) water are typically being pumped from the tunnel; this is normally released directly into the adjacent River Severn. Attempts have also been made to try to determine the sources of the water which feeds the "Great Spring". The especially difficult conditions for infrastructure maintenance in the tunnel, as well as the physical condition of the tunnel structure, require a higher than normal degree of maintenance attention. Access and personal safety difficulties mean that significant work tasks can only be performed during temporary line closure, during which trains are normally diverted via . It is claimed that the tunnel would be full of water within 26 minutes if the pumps were switched off and backup measures failed, while
Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...
has also observed that the corrosive atmosphere of the tunnel, produced from a combination of moisture and diesel fumes from passing trains, results in so much corrosion that the steel rails need to be replaced every six years.


History


Construction

Prior to the building of the tunnel, the railway journey between the
Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
area and South Wales involved a ferry journey between and or a long detour via . Officials within the
Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
(GWR) Company soon realised that the rail journey time between the two locations could be significantly shortened by construction of a tunnel directly underneath the
River Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...
. As such, during the early 1870s, GWR's chief engineer,
Sir John Hawkshaw Sir John Hawkshaw FRS FRSE FRSA MICE (9 April 1811 – 2 June 1891), was an English civil engineer. He served as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers 1862-63. His most noteworthy work is the Severn Tunnel. Early life He was bor ...
, developed his design for this tunnel. On 27 June 1872, the company obtained an
Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...
which authorised the construction of the envisioned railway tunnel as a replacement for the
ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...
between
Portskewett Portskewett ( cy, Porthsgiwed or ''Porthysgewin'') is a village and community (parish) in Monmouthshire, south east Wales. It is located four miles south west of Chepstow and one mile east of Caldicot, in an archaeologically sensitive part of the ...
, Monmouthshire and
Lew Passage Lew or LEW may refer to: People * Lew (given name) * Lew (surname) Places * Lew, Oxfordshire, England * River Lew, in Devon, England Transport * LEW Hennigsdorf, a rail vehicle factory in Hennigsdorf, Germany * Lew (locomotive), a British narro ...
, Gloucestershire. On 18 March 1873, construction activity commenced using labourers employed directly by the GWR; this initial work was focused on the sinking of a shaft, possessing a diameter of at Sudbrook and a smaller drainage heading near the
Pennant Measures The Pennant Measures is the traditional name for a sequence of sedimentary rocks of the South Wales Coalfield. They were also referred to as the Upper Coal Measures and assigned to the Westphalian 'C' and Westphalian 'D' stages of the Carbonifero ...
. The rate of early work on the tunnel was slow and gradual, but without major incident. By August 1877, only the shaft and a heading had been completed; accordingly, that same year, new contracts were issued for the digging of additional shafts at both sides of the Severn as well as new headings along the tunnel's intended route. As the civil engineer Thomas A. Walker, who was appointed as the contractor for the tunnel's construction, notes in his book, the GWR had expected the critical part of the work to be the tunnelling under the deep-water channel of the Shoots. However, the most substantial difficulties of the venture were encountered during October 1879, when, with only 130 yards (119 m) separating the main tunnel heading being driven from the Monmouthshire side and the shorter Gloucestershire heading, the workings were inundated. The incoming water was fresh, not from the Severn but from the Welsh side, and the source became known as "The Great Spring". Walker was entrusted by Hawkshaw to proceed with efforts to rescue and then complete the tunnel following the 1879 flooding. To achieve this required holding the Great Spring in check, which in turn was accomplished via the installation of greatly-increased pumping facilities, while a diver also had to be sent down a shaft and along the tunnel heading to close a watertight door in the workings, sealing off the waters. During November 1880, this troublesome task was finally achieved by the lead diver, Alexander Lambert, who was equipped with
Henry Fleuss Henry Albert Fleuss (13 June 1851 – 6 January 1933) was a pioneering diving engineer, and Master Diver for Siebe, Gorman & Co. of London. Fleuss was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire in 1851. In 1878 he was granted a patent which improved rebr ...
' newly developed
self-contained breathing apparatus A self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), sometimes referred to as a compressed air breathing apparatus (CABA) or simply breathing apparatus (BA), is a device worn to provide breathable air in an atmosphere that is immediately dangerous to ...
(SCBA); however, work in the area of the Great Spring was unable to continue until January 1881, at which point the Great Spring was temporarily sealed off. On 26 September 1881, the two headings met, marking a key milestone in the tunnel's construction, efforts transferred to addressing the tunnel's final structure along with the long deep cuttings at either end. During October 1883, work was again disrupted by further flooding originating from the Great Spring, which was further compounded by the appearance of a spring tide only a week later; again, Lambert and other divers managed to save the day and seal the works. It was recognised that water ingress problems were to continue, thus a heading was driven at a gradient of 1 in 500 from the original Sudbrook shaft, continuing until it reached the fissure through which the Great Spring flowed. By diverting the water into the new heading, the walled-in section of the tunnel could be more easily drained and finished. There were additional mishaps which afflicted the construction site; at one point, there was an unintentional breakthrough of the bed of a pool, known as the "Salmon Pool", on the English side of the tunnel. It had been originally assumed that the continuous brickwork lining of the tunnel would withstand the groundwater pressure, thus the drainage sluice valve on the side heading was closed and all but one of the pumps were taken from the site. However, on 20 December 1885, the pressure rose so high (up to 395 kN per sq m) that a number of bricks were discovered to have been pushed out of the lining. To address this, the sluice valve was opened gradually, allowing the pressure to subside but necessitating the long-term operation of additional pumping engines. In the intervening period, the
Severn Railway Bridge The Severn Railway Bridge (historically called the Severn Bridge) was a bridge carrying the railway across the River Severn between Sharpness and Lydney in Gloucestershire, England. It was built in the 1870s by the Severn Bridge Railway Co ...
, a competing means for railway traffic to traverse the Severn, spanning between
Sharpness Sharpness ( ) is an English port in Gloucestershire, one of the most inland in Britain, and eighth largest in the South West. It is on the River Severn at , at a point where the tidal range, though less than at Avonmouth downstream ( typical sp ...
and
Lydney Lydney is a town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is on the west bank of the River Severn in the Forest of Dean District, and is 16 miles (25 km) southwest of Gloucester. The town has been bypassed by the A48 road since 1995 ...
, was also being built, eventually being opened to traffic during 1879. On 22 October 1884, work commenced on the laying of the double tracks throughout the tunnel. On 18 April 1885, the final brick was placed in the tunnel's lining. It possessed a horseshoe-shaped cross-section, complete with a concave floor, having a height of 6.1 meters above the rails along with a maximum width of . An enclosed drainage channel, in the form of an upturned semi-circular tunnel, is built onto the tunnel invert, below the rails and having a height of . According to Railway Industry publication Rail Engineer, it is believed that around 76.4 million bricks were used in the tunnel's construction. The brickwork is between and thick. Around the deepest part of the tunnel, the roof is only a maximum of beneath the river bed. During mid-1885, the Severn Tunnel was completed from a structural standing. To mark this accomplishment, on 5 September 1885, a special passenger train carrying numerous company officials and
VIP A very important person or personage (VIP or V.I.P.) is a person who is accorded special privileges due to their high social status, influence or importance. The term was not common until sometime after World War 2 by RAF pilots. Examples inc ...
s, including Sir Daniel Gooch, the then-chairman of the GWR Company, travelled through the tunnel. The first goods train passed through it on 9 January 1886. However, regular services would have to wait until the permanent pumping systems were complete. On 17 November 1886, the tunnel works were inspected by Colonel F. H. Rich, the Government Inspector, a necessary step in advance of its opening to any passenger traffic. Colonel Rich approved the works; thus, the tunnel was opened to regular goods trains during September 1886; the first passenger train followed on 1 December 1886, by which point nearly 14 years had passed since work on the tunnel had started.


Operations

At the newly built station, the GWR built a major
marshalling yard A classification yard (American and Canadian English (Canadian National Railway use)), marshalling yard (British, Hong Kong, Indian, Australian, and Canadian English (Canadian Pacific Railway use)) or shunting yard (Central Europe) is a railway ya ...
, which: distributed east and north, sending coal from the South Wales Valleys towards London and the Midlands; created mainline and localised mixed-traffic freight from goods shipped in from the Midlands, the Southwest and along the Thames Valley, both westwards into Wales and vice versa. Due to the access gradients, throughout the steam era, assistance was required for the passage of all heavy trains through the Severn Tunnel, which entailed (eastwards, from ): of 1-in-90 down to the middle of the tunnel; a further at 1-in-100 up to ; a short level then more at 1-in-100 to . This meant that the associated locomotive shed at Severn Tunnel Junction (86E), had a large number of pilot and banking locomotives to assist heavy trains through the tunnel. Under typical operations, pilot locomotives usually worked eastwards and were detached at Pilning, and would then work westwards piloting a second train back to the marshalling yard. During the latter days of steam under
British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...
, these locomotives were mainly a group of latter-built
GWR 5101 Class The GWR 5101 Class or 'Large Prairie' is a class of 2-6-2T steam locomotives of the Great Western Railway. History The 5101 Class were medium-sized tank engines used for suburban and local passenger services all over the Great Western Railw ...
2-6-2T locomotives, the bulk of which now form the core preserved stock of that class today. A number of fixed Cornish engines, powered by
Lancashire boiler A shell or flued boiler is an early and relatively simple form of boiler used to make steam, usually for the purpose of driving a steam engine. The design marked a transitional stage in boiler development, between the early haystack boilers and t ...
s, were used to permanently pump out the Great Spring and other sources of water from the tunnel. These were still in regular use until the 1960s, at which point they were replaced by electrically powered pumps. These pumps and their control systems have since been replaced during the 1990s by privately owned railway infrastructure company
Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002. It was created as part of the privatisation of ...
. During the 1930s, the availability of the reliable fresh water supply from the Great Spring was a significant contributing factor in favour of the selection of an adjacent site to be established as the
Royal Navy Propellant Factory, Caerwent The Royal Navy Propellant Factory, Caerwent was a facility at Caerwent, Monmouthshire, Wales, UK, (later RAF Caerwent) which was originally dedicated to the manufacture and storage of Royal Naval munitions. Since its closure as an armament works ...
. Water was also supplied for paper manufacture to a mill at Sudbrook; this facility has since been closed. On 7 December 1991, the
Severn Tunnel rail accident On 7 December 1991, two trains collided inside the Severn Tunnel, between England and Wales. There were no fatalities but 185 passengers were injured. Accident The 08:30 London Paddington to Cardiff Central operated by an InterCity 125 was ...
occurred, involving an
InterCity 125 The InterCity 125 (originally Inter-City 125New trai ...
that was struck from behind by a Class 155. The subsequent accident investigation, while unable to reach a firm conclusion on the cause, indicated that the
axle counter An axle counter is a system used in railway signalling to detect the clear or occupied status of a section of track between two points. The system generally consists of a wheel sensor (one for each end of the section) and an evaluation unit for c ...
s used for detecting train movements in the tunnel may have been accidentally reset. The
Second Severn Crossing or cy, Pont Tywysog Cymru, label=none, italic=unset , carries = M4 motorway (6 lanes) , crosses = River Severn , locale = South West England / South East Wales , maint = National Highways , architect ...
, which was built during the 1990s, crosses over the tunnel via a "ground level bridge" on the English side, near the Salmon Pool. This bridge is supported in such a way that no load is imposed on the tunnel. During that bridge's construction, the opportunity was taken to renew the concrete cap above the tunnel in the Salmon Pool. In 2002, two Class 121s were overhauled by
LNWR The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom. In 1923, it became a constituent of the L ...
,
Crewe Crewe () is a railway town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The Crewe built-up area had a total population of 75,556 in 2011, which also covers parts of the adjacent civil parishes of Willaston ...
for use as a
Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...
emergency train that was stabled near Severn Tunnel Junction station. They were removed in 2008 having never been used.


Car transport

During 1924, the Great Western Railway started a
car shuttle train A car shuttle train, or (sometimes) car-carrying train, is a shuttle train used to transport accompanied cars ( automobiles), and usually also other types of road vehicles, for a relatively short distance. Car shuttle trains usually operate on ...
service using the tunnel, which would transport cars on rail trucks through the tunnel between
Pilning Pilning is a village in South Gloucestershire, England, close to Redwick and Severn Beach. Pilning is close to the M4, M49 and A403 roads, and has the South Wales Main Line railway running through it, with a minor station. The civil parish ...
and Severn Tunnel Junction. The service functioned as a rail-based alternative to the
Aust Ferry Aust Ferry or Beachley Ferry was a ferry service that operated across the River Severn between Aust and Beachley, both in Gloucestershire, England. Before the Severn Bridge opened in 1966, it provided service for road traffic crossing between ...
, which was operated under an erratic timetable determined by the
tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravity, gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide t ...
s, or lengthy road journeys via Gloucester. The rail shuttle service was continued after the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, but was ultimately made redundant by the opening of the
Severn Bridge The Severn Bridge ( cy, Pont Hafren) is a motorway suspension bridge that spans the River Severn between South Gloucestershire in England and Monmouthshire in South East Wales. It is the original Severn road crossing between England and Wale ...
in 1966, leading to its discontinuation shortly thereafter.


Electrification

As part of the
21st-century modernisation of the Great Western Main Line Network Rail planned to spend £5 billion on modernising the Great Western Main Line, its South Wales branch and other associated lines. The modernisation plans were announced at separate times but their development time-scales overlap in the 20 ...
, the tunnel was prepared for electrification. While the structure provided good clearances and was therefore relatively easy to electrify, there was also a detracting factor in the form of the continuous seepage of water through the tunnel roof in some areas, which provided a key engineering challenge. The options of using either conventional tunnel electrification equipment or a covered solid beam technology were considered; supported by studies, it was decided to use the solid beam approach. Accordingly, along the length of the tunnel's roof, an aluminium conductor rail was installed to hold an un-tensioned copper contact cable; this rail is held in place using roughly 7000 high-grade
stainless steel Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...
fixtures, which should be resistant to the hostile tunnel environment. Reportedly, the rigid rail is more robust, requires less maintenance, and is more compact than traditional overhead wires, and has been used in several other tunnels along the GWML. In order to install the overhead electrification equipment, a six-week closure of the Severn Tunnel was necessary, which commenced on 12 September 2016. During that time, alternative means of travel were either a longer train journey via Gloucester, or a bus service between Severn Tunnel Junction and Bristol Parkway stations. Also during that time, and possibly later, there were direct flights between Cardiff and
London City Airport London City Airport is a regional airport in London, England. It is located in the Royal Docks in the Borough of Newham, approximately east of the City of London and east of Canary Wharf. These are the twin centres of London's financial ...
. Following the completion of this work, which involved the installation of of copper contact wires using 1,700 vertical drop tubes and 857 anchoring points at a rough cost of £10 million to perform, the tunnel was reopened to regular traffic on 22 October 2016.Carr, Colin
“Severn Tunnel Electrification - Planning logistics and interfaces.”
‘’railengineer.uk’’, 13 December 2016.
However, less than two years later, another three-week closure of the tunnel was enacted after it was discovered that some of the recently installed overhead electrification equipment had already started to
rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH ...
. To combat corrosion,
aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...
wire was used, the first of its type in the United Kingdom. Electric trains began operating through the tunnel in June 2020.Network Rail completes Great Western electrification
''International Railway Journal'' 5 June 2020


See also

*
Severn tunnel (1810) The Severn tunnel of 1810 was an unsuccessful plan for a tramroad tunnel beneath the River Severn. The tunnel was to cross the river at Arlingham Passage, at a location between Newnham on Severn and Bullo Pill on the west bank, to the promontor ...
*
Severn Tunnel rail accident On 7 December 1991, two trains collided inside the Severn Tunnel, between England and Wales. There were no fatalities but 185 passengers were injured. Accident The 08:30 London Paddington to Cardiff Central operated by an InterCity 125 was ...
*
Crossings of the River Severn This is a list of crossings of the River Severn in Great Britain (including bridges, tunnels, ferries and fords), in order from source to mouth. The Severn has historically been a very important and busy river, and has been bridged throughou ...


References


Citations


Bibliography

* '' The Severn Tunnel: Its Construction and Difficulties (1872–1887)'' by Thomas A. Walker (1st edition 1888) reprinted edition 2004, Nonsuch Publishing Ltd, Stroud, England . Reissued in 2013 (from fresh photographs of the 1890 second edition) by Cambridge University Press, . (Walker was the contractor entrusted by the chief GWR engineer Sir
John Hawkshaw Sir John Hawkshaw FRS FRSE FRSA MICE (9 April 1811 – 2 June 1891), was an English civil engineer. He served as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers 1862-63. His most noteworthy work is the Severn Tunnel. Early life He was born ...
with rescuing and completing the tunnel after the 1879 flooding) * ''Railway Tales of the Unexpected'' by K Westcott-Jones , 1992, Atlantic Transport Publishers.


Further reading

*


External links


History of the tunnel
from the Great Western Archive

how divers tried to seal the Great Spring {{coord, 51.575, -2.6889, display=title, region:GB_dim:4000, name=Severn Tunnel - nominal location River Severn Transport in South Gloucestershire District Buildings and structures in South Gloucestershire District Railway tunnels in England Railway tunnels in Wales Tunnels in Wales South Wales Main Line Transport in Monmouthshire Tunnels completed in 1886 Tunnels in Gloucestershire Tunnels in Monmouthshire 1886 establishments in the United Kingdom Car shuttle trains